


In Recess

by TheSigyn



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-10
Updated: 2010-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 22:36:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4582725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSigyn/pseuds/TheSigyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Trial of a Time Lord, between Mindwarp and Terror of the Vervoids, the Doctor goes on recess to gather his defense. But how can he defend himself with the sound of Peri’s betrayed screams still echoing in his mind? The Doctor has to be given hope again, by the one Time Lord left in the universe who is wholly and completely on his side, and maybe, just maybe, the one who hates him the most. A story that spends most of its time answering unanswered questions posed by Trial of a Time Lord.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Susan’s future is another one of those unwritten histories where I decided my version is as accurate as anyone else’s, since it’s never concretely established. I did reference a couple of uncanonized stories about her potential offspring.

  
  
The Doctor couldn’t see. He couldn’t think. Worms were crawling beneath his skin as the horrific vision of his companion’s death played over and over again in his vision. He had sort of lied in the trial when he’d shouted, “I remember now!” His memory was still tattered, twisted and shadowed until he wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t. But there was one thing he did remember — He’d been on his way to save Peri... and the Time Lords had dragged him away.   
  
It was all their fault. His friends had been in danger before. And he was always, always able to pull them out of it! A sudden stab as he thought of Adric reminded him that wasn’t always the case. But in this instance, he was only a few seconds away from bursting in and saving the day, and they had snatched him in their net like a guppy in a child’s fish tank.   
  
And Peri had suffered for it.   
  
He was walking in a blind daze, led by armed guard to the quarters he’d been assigned where he was to be permitted — by the generous grace of the Time Lord council! — to utilize the Matrix for his own defense. And he didn’t care. He didn’t want to defend himself. He wanted the Time Lords, and particularly the Valeyard, slaughtered in their beds! But even his rage was buried under a flood of grief. They deserved to die. He deserved to die.   
  
He tripped. He might have been tripped on purpose, he wasn’t sure. The guards were standing at point-blank range, and there had been many jeers and catcalls thrown in his direction as he was led away. It seemed the whole of Gallifrey was watching this debacle of a trial, let alone the Time Ship the trial was being held on. The Doctor was reminded of ancient Rome. He wondered when he was going to be thrown to the lions. Someone might have taken it upon themselves to add to his humiliation and have him knocked to the floor. He didn’t care. He let the sounds of his captors whistle over him like the wind.   
  
Eventually one voice stood out amidst all the shouting. She had been arguing with the guards for some minutes. “And I’m telling you, there’s no need to hover over him like he’s carrying a bomb. Look at him! Does he look in any condition to run? What kind of trouble could he cause? If you can’t shoot him from ten feet away with that pig-sticker, you’re not worthy of that uniform.”   
  
Eventually the oppressive bodies stepped away from him, leaving a pair of gentle hands coaxing at his shoulders. “Come on, sit up,” she said. He didn’t want to sit up. He didn’t want to do anything ever again. “Come on, Grandfather!” she snapped. “You don’t want them to win, do you?”   
  
The Doctor opened his eyes. “Susan?” he whispered.   
  
He wasn’t together enough to even question her sudden appearance. It seemed to take the strength of Atlas to drag his body back into a vertical position, but he did it, and allowed Susan to lead him into a dim room off the corridor. The two guards seemed about to enter with her, but she gave them a harsh look and they retreated, standing with efficiency on either side as the door closed behind them.   
  
Susan led him to a couch in the center of the room and let him collapse in a grieving heap upon it. Some minutes later she emerged from the apartment’s tiny kitchen, carrying a fresh cup of ceric — which wasn’t exactly tea, but a close Gallifreyan equivalent.   
  
The Doctor sat up and permitted her to put the mug of red liquid into his hand. “Drink,” Susan said.   
  
The Doctor drank, and made a face. He’d forgotten ceric.   
  
“I know,” Susan said. “I prefer tea, too. But they’ve closed down the trading centers, and this is all we can get.”   
  
“Susan, what are you doing here?” the Doctor asked.   
  
“The Time Lords came to fetch me,” Susan said. “They wanted me as a character witness for your hearing.”   
  
“What hearing?”   
  
“It was before you were even called in,” Susan said. “They didn’t like what I had to say, so the Valeyard changed the proceedings. He said it was only to be your actions during THIS regeneration that were on trial.” She eyed him. “I must say, you’ve certainly gotten more colorful as time has gone on.”   
  
The Doctor looked down at his motley coat, and started to cry.   
  
“Oh, Grandfather!” Susan took the ceric out of his hands and sat beside him, putting her arm on his shoulder.   
  
“Peri hated this coat,” the Doctor said. “It’s the only reason I wore it.”   
  
Susan stared at him for some minutes before she said, “You really cared for that human, didn’t you.”   
  
“You have no idea,” the Doctor whispered. “I... never like being alone, but Peri... Peri was so much more.... This regeneration seemed built around her, I swear to you. We argued and bantered and tossed back and forth, and all the time it meant so much. To both of us. It was so hard and so easy. So much passion.... I usually wait for my — my friends to go away, to leave me and do something with their lives, but Peri.... I meant to spend the rest of this life... of her life....” He drew in a deep breath. “Blackguards!” he shouted, surging to his feet. “Bastards! I’ll see you torn, burned and boiled!”   
  
“Grandfather, stop!” Susan hissed.   
  
“Why?” the Doctor shouted. “What more could they do to me, eh? Execute me? What do you want from me! You crouch there like little spiders, spinning your little webs, until the whole universe is ensnared in your machinations, but not me, eh? Not me!”   
  
“Grandfather!” Susan stood up and grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. “Stop it! You are in enough trouble already.”   
  
“I don’t care!” the Doctor shouted. “Is it too much to ask for a little happiness? Is it? After everything you’ve done to me?”  
  
“Grandfather,” Susan said. “They do have a point. They always have. Just by leaving without authorization we did break Gallifreyan law. Both of us.”   
  
“You were a child — a child their wretched academy was half killing, I might add — the laws shouldn’t even have applied to you!” He stopped, blinking at her. “What are you doing here anyway? Where’s David?”   
  
“He died since the last time I saw you,” Susan said carefully.   
  
“Weren’t you... working on children?”  
  
She shook her head. “The orphans are grown up now. They don’t need me anymore. As for David and me.... The DNA graft never did take,” she said. Then she looked down. “Just as well, really. The Time Lords said if it had ever worked They’d have to take our children away.”   
  
“Kill them, you mean,” the Doctor growled.   
  
Susan looked resigned. “I think They said isolate them. Somewhere where they couldn’t interfere with history. Half-breeds wouldn’t have been accepted here, and they would be too dangerous for Earth.”   
  
“But They let you stay with David?” the Doctor asked.   
  
Susan nodded. “Only because I was helping him fight the Daleks,” she said. “They, ah... They seemed to have some... plan.... They haven’t really explained it to me.” She started to tremble. “They... They say... human/Time Lord relations are... are....”   
  
She was holding back tears. The Doctor went to her and held her tightly. “So they’re after you, too.”   
  
Susan sniffed and nodded.   
  
“You’ve been watching this travesty?” the Doctor asked.   
  
“Everyone has.”   
  
The Doctor thought about this, and then abandoned the attempt. “I don’t care,” he muttered. He flung himself back down on the couch and curled up, burying his head in his arm. “They can do what they want to me. I don’t care anymore.”   
  
“You can’t mean that, Grandfather.”   
  
“Peri...” he whispered. “So much pain... so much loss in her life. It was the first time I met someone who... hurt as much as I did. And could stand up to it nevertheless.” Tears fell from his eyes again. “This is my fault,” he choked.   
  
“No it’s not.”   
  
“I should have known they’d do something like this,” he said. “They did it to Jamie and Sarah. Snatching me away. They don’t want me to be happy.” He shook his head. “I should have known, once we’d gotten so close. They’ll only let me get so close and no closer. They don’t want a human to understand too much of how the Time Lords think. They’re so afraid of humans, how they adapt, how they just blunder through. Ever since humans made the Time Agency in the fifty-first century They were so terrified.... I just thought.... They’ve never killed one before. Not someone I cared about. I didn’t think They’d DARE.”   
  
“They don’t think of humans as people, Grandfather,” Susan said. “They don’t see what we see.” She sounded immensely sad. “They think we keep humans like pets. Stray animals. I guess They see it as humans would see... I don’t know. Marrying a chimpanzee, or a dog or something.”   
  
The Doctor almost laughed, thinking about human marriages. The custom was so quaint, pretty little ceremonies that in themselves meant absolutely nothing. Like the word ‘love’.   
  
Of course, he was beginning to suspect that this trial was exactly that, a pretty ceremony that in the end meant nothing at all.   
  
“Peri was....” He stopped. There were no words for what Peri was.   
  
Susan’s eyes shone as she said, “So was David.” She sat back on her heels and watched him. “They’re calling us both ‘half-humans,’” she said with scorn. On earth it would have been like being called a dyke or a nigger-lover, or any of a thousand despicable epithets that in the end basically meant having love or empathy for something different.   
  
“I take the title and gladly,” the Doctor muttered. “I’d rather be half-human or all human rather than share blood with these callus, indolent butchers!”   
  
“Humans can be just as bad,” Susan pointed out.   
  
“But at least they don’t have infinite power to do it with!” the Doctor shouted, his anger surging again. He bolted to his feet, screaming at the walls. “At least they aren’t lording it over the rest of the universe, needling their little fingers into time and space and watching entire planets die for their precious continuity! As if they don’t break their own laws time and time and time again! What about the Daleks, eh? What about Skaro! You made me into this! You wanted me to be like this! And now you’re going to barge into my life, killing my companions, kidnaping my granddaughter, pretending I am anything other than what YOU MADE ME!!”  
  
“Grandfather, please!”   
  
“If you want me dead, do it clean!” the Doctor shouted. “Slice my lives from me, pull my thread from the web of time, break this worthless body into a thousand different pieces, but do it clean and honest, none of this crimes against Time malarkey!”   
  
“Grandfather!” She tried to grab his shoulder to calm him down.   
  
“Get off me!” the Doctor cried, snatching himself out of the way.   
  
Susan blinked at him. “I can see this regeneration has anger issues,” she said calmly.   
  
“Yes!” the Doctor shouted. “It does!” He glared at her. “And she hated it and she loved it and it saved her life so many times, and it — couldn’t do it this time...!” His grief burst over him and he sank to his knees, sobbing now in earnest.   
  
He crumpled in on himself, his throat aching from his shouting, his face stinging from the tears. Susan left him to his grief for several long minutes, unable to help. She could sense the massive psychic radiation of pain that emanated from him, a dark cloud of grief and rage and despair. Finally she made herself walk into it and put her hand back on his shoulder.   
  
There was a demon told about at night to the children of Gallifrey. Among the Nasty Saviars and the Toclafane and the Blueteeth. They were called the Kalamiene. Literally translated into English the word would have meant “should have”. The should-have-beens. They were the most terrible demons of all. They would grab at your soul and drag you down and down and down, tearing away your future, every regeneration, until you were nothing but a single life, slowly ticking away. They fed off of regret.   
  
“I should have left her on Earth,” the Doctor muttered, invoking the Kalamiene. “I should have made her return to the TARDIS. Hell, I should have killed her myself years ago, it would have been better than what just happened...!”   
  
“Don’t, Grandfather,” Susan said. “You know time doesn’t work like that.”   
  
“It should,” the Doctor muttered, invoking the very worst of the demons.   
  
She pulled him to her and ran her hands over his tightly coiled hair. He’d done this for her, years ago. When she was only eight years old, and the horror of the Untempered Schism had nearly broken her young mind.   
  
Everyone reacted differently to the raw power of Time itself. The Doctor ran. The Rani had stared for hours and hours, fascinated, until she had to be dragged away. Romanadveratnalunda had raised her eyebrows and suddenly started to laugh.   
  
Susan had simply wept.   
  
And she wept and wept and wept for days, crying inconsolably, until her body had weakened and her mind had softened and her eyes became empty red pools of sleepless horror. Finally the Doctor came, barged his way into the academy against all the rules, gathered her into his lap and rocked peace into her mind. Not that it made the academy any easier. Until finally, horrified by her depression and the harassment her reaction had instigated amongst the other students, he had taken her away, and shown her time as it really was, events and people and places and adventure, not a hollow spinning schism of everything at once. She was convinced it had saved her life. But it had made exiles of them both.   
  
“Maybe we can do something,” Susan said.  
  
“Cut out both my hearts and feed them to the Valeyard on a skewer?” the Doctor said with bleak irony. “Because I think that’s the only thing likely to mollify these butchers, and it’s certainly the only thing likely to end this pain.”   
  
Susan opened her mouth and quietly said the most outrageous thing any Time Lord could ever say. “Maybe we can rewrite time.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there is a quote from Douglas Adams in here. I don’t own him, either.

The Doctor was shocked out of his grief. He turned to stare at her. “What?”

Susan had quite a mischievous grin on her face, one the Doctor recognized all too well. “They’ve already done it,” Susan said. “They didn’t just bring you here, They snatched you out of time, interrupted the normal stream. That makes the whole area a space of temporal instability. Anything that happens there in the time immediately surrounding the break is fundamentally in flux.”

The Doctor blinked at her. “Been studying since you got back to Gallifrey?” he asked.

Susan made a face. “They keep briefing me on the Daleks,” she said. “It would seem... thanks to this war I fought on Earth with David that I know more about how Daleks fight than anyone in the history of the universe. They want that knowledge. I think someone somewhere senses something. They’re even considering pulling that wretched Oracle out of the loom and reinstating her regenerations.”

“The Other is insane!” the Doctor said.

“I know, but they want to know everything I do about how the Daleks fought on earth. Since they see fit to interrogate me in the Hall of Records at the Academy, there’s nothing says I can’t do a little studying on the side. Just pull up a computer and it’s all there.” She looked at him askance. “Did you know they teach an entire class on you?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

“The Absent President, it’s called. The final is to write a thesis on whether you count as a hero or a menace, and various proofs on both. Everyone watches the things you do on the Matrix.”

The Doctor looked at her sharply. “Everything?”

“Not everything,” Susan said. “The Matrix automatically edits out anything too personal. Self-ownership rights.”

The Doctor took a deep breath, glad that the self-ownership rights were still in effect. He hadn’t been sure the Time Lords would bother keeping their own laws. “I don’t see how this could help Peri, though.”

Susan frowned. “Nor me, exactly. But you’re permitted to access the Matrix for your defense, yes?”

“Only externally. It won’t do any good,” the Doctor said. “And they know it. You said only this regeneration, yes? Everything with this life has been to do with Peri. Anything to do with Peri will be... tainted by....” He couldn’t finish.

“I’m not talking about for your defense,” Susan said. “Though we should get to that. I’m talking about helping Peri. If you can access the Matrix you should be able to assess the affects of other Time Lords on the area. You can see if you can help.”

“But there are no other Time Lords in the area. And there won’t be, temporal flux or no. Everyone’s against me, there’s no one who would stand for me, and certainly no one who would interfere with time. Not for me, and certainly not for a human.”

“Don’t you have any friends left among the Time Lords? This was their doing, not yours, and Peri was an innocent.”

“No,” the Doctor said. “No friends at all.” Romana was still in E-Space, and the rest of his school friends in the Deca had universally turned against him. Except.... No. Far too dangerous. He’d likely make this worse...

But how could he make things any worse? The Doctor was more than willing to die for Peri — had done it once already, in fact, and would do it again, and entire. So what harm could this gambit do? “But I may,” the Doctor said thoughtfully, “have an enemy.”

“What?”

The Doctor took a deep breath. “Stand back, Susan,” he said. “This might blow up in my face. I need to get to the TARDIS.”

“It’s grounded by a temporal lock. And I still don’t know how to operate one.”

“I know,” the Doctor said. “I don’t need to go anywhere. I just need to contact someone... and how is going to be a trick in and of itself. The last time I saw him I had just shunted him across to the edge of the universe in the Rani’s TARDIS, and I don’t think he’ll be too pleased. Or her either, for that matter. They never did get on, even in school.”

“Who?”

“No,” the Doctor said absently. “Not this time.”

 

***

 

The Doctor flicked through the time streams in the Time Array on the TARDIS. While it was technically possible to access the time streams from the console room, the Array room was considerably more direct, and had much more comfortable chairs. “I’m hoping this won’t take too long,” the Doctor said. “They’ve already kept me away from Peri’s time stream too long as it is, making me sit through all that wretched business on Ravalox. If we wait too long her death will be fixed, temporal instability or no...” He glanced up at Susan. “Were we followed?”

“No,” Susan said, looking through another corner of the Array, looking through the trial ship to keep an eye on the Time Lords and make sure they weren’t going to interrupt the Doctor on his mission. “You’ve gotten awfully good at distracting guards!”

“A spare five-hundred years experience, more or less.”

Susan looked up at him. “If you’re going to start lying about your age, I’d go with nine-hundred, that’s just me. Anything less and you just sound like a fool.”

He glanced at her. “I was talking about since we last traveled together,” he said, but since he’d lost track of exactly how old he was at least four hundred years ago, he knew she was right. He’d been calling himself some variant on nine-hundred for the last fifty years, now. He’d probably be doing it for the next millennium. He wasn’t sure how old even this regeneration was... it couldn’t be more than ten — it was hard to tell, Peri had aged so gracefully....

Enough of this. Terrible icy grips of horror and grief kept distracting him from his job, and he knew that wasn’t going to help Peri.

“Who is this person you’re looking for?” Susan asked.

“He’s called the Master. You haven’t met him. Exactly”

“Weren’t you talking to him in the Death Zone last time I saw you?”

“Yes...” he mused. “That’s one of the reasons why I think he might help me now.”

“How are you going to find him?”

The Doctor looked uncomfortable. “We’ve fought before,” he said. “If you’ve read this wretched class on me, you’ll know I was exiled to Earth. He was stuck there too, for a while. We’ve been enemies for so long now. I— you see I always have a bit of a sub-knowledge of where he is. Just as he does with me. Our... minds are kind of... tuned to the same wavelength. It’s why we keep running in to each other, so seemingly by accident. It’s not by design, exactly, it’s just... sub-knowledge. The question is accessing it.... Uhg!” The Doctor lost his temper and slammed his hands on the keyboard. “Useless!”

A red light started blinking on the corner of the console.

“Well, I’ll be,” the Doctor said, and he didn’t even notice that he’d unconsciously said it in Peri’s accent. He typed up the coordinates and a black screen suddenly turned to a black screen with black rondels behind it, and an empty chair.

It stayed empty for a long time, though there was a slight sound from over the speaker, as if someone was standing just out of sight of the view screen, waiting... just waiting. Finally a bearded figure in mediaeval black velvet slid gently into the seat before the screen — black on black. “Doctor,” said the Master with patient sarcasm. “To what would I owe this inestimable pleasure?”

“I, ahm...” The Doctor coughed, nervously. He didn’t beat around the bush. He hadn’t time. “I need your help.”

The Master’s head tilted and his eyes opened wide for a second. Then, with constrained hilarity, he tilted back his head and cackled, as if he’d just been asked for a weasel. “Your humor is impressive, Doctor,” he said loudly, as if he was addressing an entire congregation rather than just the Doctor, alone in the Time Array. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were calling on an old friend.”

The Doctor let himself be laughed at, expressionless.

“What is it that you need, Doctor?” the Master finally asked. “I’d like to keep a record of this conversation, to play back when I’m bored after I have finally caused your ultimate destruction.”

“I need you to go against the Time Lords,” the Doctor said evenly.

Now the Master did look interested. “Do you indeed,” the Master said, deadly quiet. “I can’t say it’s a goal I’d be opposed to, ultimately. But why should you need me?”

“Because they’re after me, this time,” the Doctor said. “I’m on trial for my life, and I never thought there was anyone who wanted my head more than you. But I was wrong. The prosecutor is a man called the Valeyard, and he’s easily as evil as you.”

“Don’t insult me, Doctor,” the Master said.

“I’m not,” the Doctor said. “This Valeyard doesn’t seem entirely present, as if he’s only half real, or possibly only half sane. His look causes ice to creep up my spine, and I thought the only person in the universe who could do that to me was you.”

“You flatter me.”

“I’m trying to. I need help, more than I ever have in my life. Without you I may as well just let myself die. And where would the satisfaction be in that?”

“Where indeed?” the Master said. “I’ve heard of this Valeyard,” the Master said suddenly, surprising the Doctor. “He contacted every Time Lord in history looking to confirm information on you.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Why nothing,” the Master said. “He had nothing to offer me, and I cared very little for his concerns. It didn’t occur to me he was in fact... hunting you.” The way he said those last two words made Susan shudder. “Now what, pray tell, Doctor, have I got to lose by sitting back and merely allowing him to destroy you?”

“Everything!” the Doctor said. His tone grew very dark. “Everything. You lose the ultimate conquest, the eternal ownership. You lose my demise.”

The Master remained perfectly still, but the entrancing pain the Doctor knew so well crept into his eyes. “And what makes you think that matters to me?” he said evenly.

The Doctor leaned forward, until his head was almost touching the screen. “If he kills me,” the Doctor said in a sinister whisper, “I’ll never belong to you again.”

The Master almost disappeared from the screen, bolting upright from his chair — more of a throne, really. He did not return to the screen, and eventually it flickered and went black.

The Doctor nodded. “You took the shields off the TARDIS?” he asked Susan.

“I think so,” Susan said. “Why?”

“Because he’s either just told the Time Lord Council that I’m in here plotting, in which instance we’ve lost nothing. Or he’ll be here himself in a minute.”

“Who is this man?”

The Doctor looked at her and then looked away. “A Time Lord,” he said. “A renegade. You shouldn’t recognize him.”

Susan thought that was an odd way to put it. He’d also said that she didn’t know him — exactly. She began to wonder if there was something the Doctor was trying to keep from her. Her mind cast back to the brief glimpse she’d had of the Master, far away across a field in the Death Zone. He hadn’t really looked familiar, then... had he? He’d been too far away for her to feel the mental imprint that all Time Lords had, which was how they recognized each other throughout their regenerations.

A moment later a deep thrum told them both that the Master’s TARDIS was materializing in the Array room. Quietly ripping a hole in reality, a Chinese Obelisk slowly appeared between a couch and a monitor. And nothing whatsoever came out of it.

They stood there for what seemed an hour, but was probably only a few minutes. “What’s going on?” Susan asked, striding forward to touch the Master’s TARDIS.

“Susan, don’t!” the Doctor cried out, but it was too late. The side of the obelisk slammed open and the Master’s black velvet sleeve shot out, catching Susan around the neck. “Don’t do it, Master! Don’t!”

The Master himself inched out of his TARDIS, holding a sharp stiletto, the blade at Susan’s throat. Susan gasped, terrified for a few tense seconds, her eyes wide with fear. She stared at the Master... and her face slowly softened. She knew the man who held her. His face was different, and his psychic imprint had shifted wildly, for reasons she couldn’t understand, but there was still enough to recognize. She remembered him very well. “Oncle Koschei?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have left the Doctor’s relationship with the Master a bit ambiguous. A bit.

  
  
“Oncle Koschei, what’s happened to you?” Susan whispered.   
  
“Shut up, girl!” the Master growled.   
  
“He’s not Koschei anymore,” the Doctor said to her, “forget that name. Master.” He sounded like someone trying to coax a jumper from off a ledge. “Master, I’m here. I’m here, let Susan go.”   
  
“Why should I?” the Master said. “I can just imagine the pain in your eyes as you see your grandchild perish in my arms. Why shouldn’t I simply let this blade... slip...?”   
  
“Because that’s not how you want to kill me,” the Doctor said quietly. “Look at me. Just look at me. Can my psyche take any more losses today?” The Master’s eyes were wild. You could never be entirely sure what he would do.   
  
“Oncle Koschei,” Susan said. “Don’t you remember me?”   
  
The Master glanced down at her.   
  
“You used to tell me stories,” Susan said. “When I was just small, remember? You... you took me to your father’s estate, once. By Mount Perdition. When I was seven, remember? You-you taught me how to roll down the hill...? With my arms crossed before me tumbling over and over and over until it felt like flying. I was scared, remember? I was to go to the academy, and you said when I looked into the Schism to just let it roll over and over and over me, because fighting it just drives you mad. You were right. It would have been so much worse but for what you told me. Please, Oncle Koschei. It’s still my first life.” She started to cry.   
  
The Master stared into her eyes. First lives were so precious to the Time Lords. They were the only life with a childhood. For all she was well into her sixties, Susan was still barely more than a child.   
  
The Doctor stood there, trembling. Her plea could work. Maybe her voice or her tears could penetrate the madness, find the soul which was still buried under it all — which the Doctor couldn’t help but know was writhing. Or it could backfire, and the Master could take her first life to punish the Doctor.   
  
“We were friends,” Susan said. “All of us, friends. What happened, Oncle Koschei?”   
  
“My name is the Master!” the Master hissed at her.   
  
“But when did you and Grandfather become such enemies?” Susan asked.  
  
The Master grabbed her tighter, digging the knife point even deeper against her throat. Susan whimpered as a thin line of blood trickled down into her collar. “When he left without me!” the Master growled, and he threw her behind him, knocking her against his TARDIS.   
  
Susan fell, then gasped, clutching at the puncture wound on her neck, but it wasn’t her artery, and she was going to be fine. The Doctor heaved a sigh of relief, which didn’t last long, as within a second the Master had the knife at his throat. The Doctor backed up until he was against the wall. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t kill you now?” the Master snarled.   
  
“With a knife?” the Doctor said, not without fear. “Doesn’t sound like you.”  
  
“You don’t know what I’m like, Doctor,” the Master hissed.   
  
“No,” the Doctor said evenly. “Right now, I don’t even know what I’m like.”   
  
The Master regarded him evenly for long, tense seconds, and finally lifted the blade away. “How desperate are you to have called on me, Doctor?” he asked with false levity. “What is it that you think you want?”   
  
The Doctor stared at him. For a man in motley with a bright red ribbon around his neck, he did not look at all like he was fooling. “The Time Lords have killed Peri.”   
  
The Master blinked, and then frowned. “Ah! Young Perpugillium Brown! Charming young woman. I’m surprised she’s still with you. After all, she’s not exactly the most stable of young women, is she.”   
  
“She isn’t still with me,” the Doctor said, and he relayed how the Time Lords had dragged him out of time before he could save her from having her mind superceded by the financial Mentor Kiv.   
  
“And for once you didn’t perform your trademark last minute rescue?” the Master said with irony. “You’re getting sloppy, Doctor.”   
  
“I know I am,” the Doctor said.   
  
“And what do you want from me?”   
  
“Anything,” the Doctor said earnestly. “The moment of Peri’s death was instigated entirely by the Time Lords, the frame of mind of the killers was externally accessed by the Time Lords, and if I had been there physically, I would have gotten there in time, as well.” His words were growing more desperate as he tried to impart everything he could without resorting to a mind-link with the Master — which would likely have driven him utterly mad. “It took a complex infiltration of Time itself to arrange for her death, and the only way it will work is if all of their machinations remain unaltered. The area is fundamentally unstable. Even the arrival of another TARDIS would likely throw the entire scenario out of balance. The mental transfer could be stopped before Kiv infiltrated her mind — for goodness sake, we don’t even know for certain that her true personality wouldn’t have reasserted itself! The mind that Kiv had previously reinhabited was obsessed with fish! That was the original occupant’s vocation, not Kiv’s, which means that the original mind is probably still in her subconscious! But they killed her, and I can’t get there, and they never gave her a chance!” He started to cry again and angrily wiped the tears away. He stared at the Master. “Even you have to admit, for the sake of justice, Peri was an innocent!”   
  
The Master regarded his tears silently for a long moment. “For the sake of justice,” the Master finally said, “your little friend sat back and watched me burn.”   
  
The Doctor grimaced.   
  
“And so did you,” the Master added.   
  
The Doctor stared at him. “When in the last four hundred years have you stopped trying to kill me?” he asked.   
  
The Master regarded him evenly. Very slowly, he reached out with his black gloved hand as if he was about to touch him... and then pulled his hand back. “You’ve already killed me,” he said quietly. “Half a dozen times.”   
  
The Doctor shook his head, so terribly sad. “My friend was dead for years before I ever met you, Master, ” he said quietly. “And I still miss him. I’d kill you a thousand times if I thought it would bring him back. As it is, I can never bring myself to kill you, ‘cause sometimes I still see him. Echos of him. But I accepted lifetimes ago that I can’t bring him back. And all I can do is watch you circle around and around until you catch yourself up in your own webs. My friend is lost to me. He was kind. He understood what it meant to have someone that close. He wouldn’t want me to lose Peri, too.”   
  
The Master looked away. His hands were trembling. With a sudden steeling of his face he clenched his hands into fists, seeming to decide something. “And what am I supposed to get out of it, if I should generously oblige you and save the life of this worthless young woman?”   
  
There was a short silence. Then the Doctor said, “Me. You can have me.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there are some contrived plot devices in this chapter which under ordinary circumstances I would never let myself get away with, but considering the contrived plot devices I’m trying to fix in the show itself, these are mild by comparison. At least I give a reason WHY the key had been copied, even if that reason is highly convenient. Not to mention a reason why the Master is involved in the first place, something which was never adequately explored in the show.

“You?” The Master stared at him. “I can kill you right now without buying your life,” he said.   
  
“You can kill me or keep me or torture me or anything you want,” the Doctor said. “I’ll give my life to you. All my lives to you. To do with as you please.”   
  
The Master regarded him for long moments. “No,” he said finally. “You wouldn’t be giving your life to me. You’d be giving your life — for her. And you know full well that isn’t what I want. Besides, if I took your lives this Valeyard would likely be after me, next — yes, I’ve caught up on this situation. And you know I don’t want that, either.”   
  
The Doctor closed his eyes. “What do you want, then?”   
  
“I want your soul,” the Master intoned.   
  
“You can’t have it,” Susan said.   
  
Both the Master and the Doctor stared at this little interjection. They’d both almost forgotten she was there. “Stay out of this!” they both said, with varying inflections.   
  
“But you can’t,” Susan said. “He doesn’t have it to give. Peri has it.” The Master stared at her as if a chair had suddenly started spouting Nietzsche, and the Doctor closed his eyes in pain. “Look at him,” Susan said. “He’s built this entire life around that human. Trust me, I know what it’s like. Humans are like quicksand. You can avoid it, but once you’re in it you can’t fight it. It’s not like being with a Time Lord. They envelop you. Once they catch hold of you all you can do is relax and accept it, until you finally rise to the surface. Grandfather’s been caught. He belongs to Peri now. If you want my Grandfather... if you want the Doctor... you have to get Peri first.”   
  
The Master regarded her evenly for long moments. “If that’s the case,” he said quietly, “then the person who holds your soul right now,” he turned his gaze to the Doctor, “is this Valeyard. Who arranged for her death.”  
  
The Doctor sagged.   
  
“He seems to know you rather well, this Valeyard,” the Master said conversationally. “You know, I took the liberty of glancing a bit at the Matrix myself on my way over here, and I noticed something odd.”   
  
“What?” the Doctor asked.   
  
“He’s not in it.”   
  
“What?” Both the Doctor and Susan perked up at this.   
  
“He’s not,” the Master said. “Now, either he has blocked his doings entirely from external access of the Matrix... which would require inside access. Or he doesn’t belong in Time Lord history at all... which would make this situation even stranger.” He stared at the Doctor. “How did he come to be your prosecutor? What do you know of him?” He glanced at Susan, and then looked back to the Doctor. “Either of you.”   
  
Susan shook her head. “Very little. All I know is he showed up on Earth requiring my presence on Gallifrey for a hearing. This was about six months ago, to me now. David was dead and the orphans were grown, so I went with him. Not that I had much choice in the matter.”   
  
The Master looked her over. “Hm,” he said. “And what about this hearing? Who called for it? Does anyone know?”   
  
The Doctor didn’t. Susan looked blank.   
  
“How about the proceedings? Do they seem a bit... ambiguous?”   
  
“Yes,” the Doctor snapped.   
  
“And the Valeyard himself?” As always, the Master was walking around the Doctor, sinister, hypnotic.   
  
The Doctor frowned, considering. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “The Scrapyard does seem a bit... off. Unfinished. I thought he was just young, his first life, perhaps, but maybe....”   
  
“Maybe,” the Master said. “But the only way to be sure would be to go inside the Matrix and see for myself.”   
  
“But that’s impossible.”   
  
“No it isn’t,” the Master said, stopping just a little too close — as always. “Your little spawn over there does it on a regular basis.”   
  
The Doctor turned to stare at Susan. “Susan, what is he talking about?”   
  
Susan opened her mouth and then closed it again.   
  
“Susan?”   
  
She glanced up at the Master. “I don’t know how he knows,” she said uncomfortably. “I don’t do anything in there. I’m just... watching.”   
  
“Watching what?”   
  
Susan looked immensely sad. Finally she looked up at the Doctor. “There was child,” she said in a very small voice. “His name was Alexander. I never knew him... the time lines were rearranged around his existence, so I never had him. Not in my real life, anyway. But he’s there... recorded in the Matrix. A little piece of me and David.” She closed her eyes. “When I learned about him — he’s actually referenced in the class on you, Grandfather, down in some footnote as a NeverWas — I... I needed to see him. But the NeverWere aren’t accessible for external viewing. The Keeper of the Matrix is sometimes there while They’re interrogating me on the Daleks, so I... I fashioned a Dalek matter transfer, and made a replicate of the Key...”   
  
The Doctor blinked at her. “You stole a copy of the Key of Rassilon,” he said incredulously.   
  
Susan shrugged, self-conscious.   
  
The Doctor laughed. He strode up and hugged her. “I think we can be reasonably assured that you are definitely my granddaughter!”   
  
“She has a morbid fascination with NeverWere. Yes, she’s most assuredly yours,” the Master said with disgust. NeverWere were more hideous to Time Lords than walking corpses would have been, their time lines dark twists of non-existence that did not affect the universe around them, and thus seemed more warped than a ghost. Even safely contained as mere ghostly records in the Matrix they were considered obscene— which was why they weren’t accessible for external viewing. But Susan’s view of Time always made her sad and frightened, anyway, so a NeverWas was only confirming her view of the universe.   
  
“Like you can talk,” the Doctor said to the Master. “You’re wearing a dead man’s face.”   
  
“If you recall,” the Master said sardonically, “it was you who called me here this evening...? I can always go away again.”   
  
Susan didn’t understand their banter, and didn’t really care, anyway. She was still astounded by meeting the remnants of her Oncle Koschei. “How did you know?” Susan asked him.   
  
The Master looked down at her innocent face. “Unlike your Grandfather there, who runs away. From. Everything. And. Everyone,” the Master said pointedly, “I check in on my past from time to time.”   
  
Susan looked at him. “You check in on me?” she asked.   
  
The Doctor was horrified, but the Master’s countenance was calm. “I’ve glanced at Nyssa, too, on and off. You realize she’s dead, don’t you?”  
  
The Doctor was not offended by the accusation in the Master’s tone. “Since from our current vantage point it’s been several hundred years, yes, I’m sure she is at this point in time. Feeling guilty for killing her father? Or is there some remnant of him still lurking in the corners of your cerebral cortex? When you behave properly in the first place, you don’t need to look back and see if you’ve left any damage.”   
  
The Master glared at him. “I didn’t come here to banter with you, Doctor. And I believe in this instance... you have left behind a great deal of damage, or you wouldn’t have called me in the first place.” He narrowed his eyes at the Doctor. “And at the moment, you're betting the future of the Matrix that there is still some vestage of your human lurking beneath that slug."  
  
The Doctor cringed.  
  
The Master continued, unabated. "I am intrigued by this business, Doctor. I am intrigued by this Valeyard. I am most intrigued by the apparent involvement of the Time Lord High Council. And while I am disgusted and unimpressed by your idea of ‘justice’ and the fate of the wretched Perpugillium Brown, I am most intrigued by the idea of having you in, of all things, my debt. But.” He snapped his fingers and held out his hand. “If I am to investigate this matter, I need access the Matrix. In exchange for that key, I will CONSIDER,” he glanced at the Doctor darkly, “rescuing this pitiful excuse for a human female.”   
  
Susan pulled out the key. “I guess I’ve seen all I need to see of Alexander,” she said quietly.   
  
But the Doctor hesitated, holding her arm. There was no telling what damage the Master could do if he had access to the Matrix. But all in all, the Matrix was only the Time Lord’s hubris, the way they looked at the universe and insisted they were better than everyone and everything in it. If it were broken beyond repair, as far as the Doctor was concerned, it wouldn’t bother him much. Not after what they had just done to Peri. Finally he took the key from Susan and held it out for the Master. “I need this, Koschei,” he said quietly.   
  
The Master narrowed his eyes. “Say my name,” he said darkly.   
  
“Master,” the Doctor whispered.   
  
The Master took hold of the key and snatched it out of the Doctor’s hand. He looked long and hard at the Doctor. As always, the Doctor could feel him, feel the edge of his mind, black, angry, warlike tendrils of evil trying to drill holes into his consciousness. And as always, the Doctor put up blocks, so that he couldn’t get in. It always hurt him to do it — because it hurt the Master to feel the rejection — but madness like his could be contagious, and the Doctor and the Master were neither of them young. His madness had grown stronger, and the Doctor had grown less accepting of it. They were no longer the same mind in two bodies, as they had been in their youth. The truth of that always hurt the Master more than it hurt the Doctor.   
  
“If you see me again, Doctor,” the Master said, “then you’ll know you really are in trouble.” He turned and retreated into his TARDIS. With a steady pulse it faded away, and the Doctor shook his head. More often than not, the Master left him with an awful headache.   
  
“I didn’t know that had happened to Oncle Koschei,” Susan said quietly.  
  
“I meant for you not to know,” the Doctor said. “I’d rather you had remembered him as he was. When he was still fighting off the madness. When he was still half sane.”   
  
“How long has he been like this?”   
  
“A dozen lifetimes and more. Of course he tends to die young. I’d swear half the time he kills himself on purpose. Just for a lull in the madness. But he doesn’t want to die... he doesn’t want it to end. Over and over, again and again, life and death and rebirth, and the madness grows stronger every time....” The Doctor wondered if he was seeing his own future in the Master. The loneliness he felt pervaded everything, and unless he had someone — someone like Peri... who was now dead — sometimes he could feel madness tickling at the edges of his consciousness. Whatever had happened on Telos Beta that was keeping him from remembering might as well have been madness. Was it his own, or had something happened to him when they stuck his brain in that machine...?  
  
“Why would he look in on me?” Susan asked, breaking into the Doctor’s reflection. “Why would he even care how I was doing?”   
  
The Doctor shrugged. “We’re the closest thing he has to family. You and your mother were the only children he ever knew. Once he was no longer a child himself, that is. The idea of him looking in on you actually terrifies me. I hope his vengeance is only fixated on me. It should be. He’ll never forgive me for leaving, and by now he has other grievances....” He trailed off, thinking of all the times he’d simply walked away and left the Master to his consistently grim fate. But there was nothing he could do to help... and nothing he could do to keep his own self safe from the Master’s madness. All he could do was let the Master’s own intrigues consume him, again and again and again.   
  
“Why didn’t you take Oncle Koschei with us, Grandfather?” Susan asked. “Back when we left Gallifrey? He was your best friend. Sometimes I thought you were more than that...”  
  
The Doctor looked at her. “He’s completely mad, Susan. And getting madder all the time. He has my sympathy, but he was just getting too dangerous. Particularly around you. You were just a child when we left, remember.”   
  
Susan smiled sadly. “And you’ve gotten so old, dancing about all your life.”   
  
The Doctor almost smiled himself. “I didn’t just leave for you, you know. I get bored easily.” He looked down. “Break too many rules.”   
  
“So many adventures,” Susan mused. “So many years, so many faces...” She touched his loud sleeve. “Is this six or seven?”   
  
“Six,” the Doctor said quietly.   
  
Susan sighed. “Shame, really. You were awfully dashing last time.”   
  
The Doctor looked very sad. “Peri needed me stronger,” he said. “I wasn’t strong enough to save her... so I died for her,” he said, his voice quavering. “If only I could have done it this time.... Maybe we’d have stopped fighting.” But that was a lie. They’d stopped fighting, anyway. Except when what they both really wanted was to make love — and that wasn’t really even a fight, anymore. Now it was a game. She no longer needed to be flushed into anger in order to know what she wanted. The scars had healed.   
  
“Do you think he’ll actually save her...?”   
  
“I don’t know. This is... the biggest gamble I will ever take in my life. He’s pure evil. I don’t trust him. I can never trust him. Or that’s what I keep telling myself. But I do.” He closed his eyes. “I do. I shouldn’t, but I do. At some level. He’s had countless opportunities to kill me. He keeps saying that’s what he wants, but in all this time.... He’s hurt me, he’s threatened me, he’s trapped me, he’s tortured me, but he hasn’t killed me. And he’s had his chances.” He shook his head. “It’s not as if he can make Peri’s fate worse than it is.”   
  
“But what if he tracks down the Valeyard, if he hates you so much? Goes in league with him?”   
  
“No doubt he’ll consider it,” the Doctor said. “Might even do it. But what have I to lose at this stage?” He frowned. “He had a chance to kill Peri. Back on Earth, with the Rani. He left her dazed, with a few choice tidbits about my past, which no doubt he thought amusing. But he didn’t kill her.” He looked down at his hands. “I think he sympathized with her. Her pain resonated with me. I think it may have with him, as well.” He shook his head. “No. He’ll find some way to torture me with this, not her. No doubt he’ll do exactly as I ask... and make me wish I’d never spoken to him.” He shook his head. “Nothing much else I can do, I suppose.”   
  
Susan took a deep breath. “There is one thing we have to do,” she said.   
  
The Doctor looked over at her.   
  
“Find you a reasonable defense.”   
  
“There is no defense for what I’ve done,” the Doctor said.   
  
“You don’t even remember it,” Susan said. “So how can you know? If the Valeyard is tampering with the Matrix than it’s not reliable, either.”   
  
The Doctor took a deep breath. “I can’t,” he said quietly. “I can’t go through this life looking for adventures I shared with Peri trying to save my worthless life, I can’t have everyone staring at her anymore, with the thought of her on that table, her head shaved, her eyes... I can’t.” His face crumpled.   
  
Susan took a deep breath. He’d only just lost her. She did know what fresh grief was like. “Then we’ll go back to your quarters and search through the Matrix looking for your future. You were taken OUT of time, not just brought here. Your future is still intact.”   
  
“I hate looking at my future,” the Doctor said. “Half the time it doesn’t turn out that way, anyway. Even my past can change — I’ve seen it happen — hell, They’ve MADE it happen! Dragging my regenerations all into one place, nearly surging my brain into pudding. What do they want from me? What’s so important about ME? Why are they bothering to try ME, and not the Master or the Rani or the War Lord or any of a thousand others who are still out there causing havoc, past present and future.” He slammed his hand against the wall. “As if those blackguards in there can say they have the definitive record of the universe! They don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow! Time isn’t time unless you’re out in it! Sitting outside of time it’s all just numbers and nothing!”   
  
“I know that,” Susan said. “And you know that. But they don’t. So we’ll look at the Matrix and see what we can find.” She took his hand. “At least we have to keep them busy to give Oncle Koschei time to fix things, yes?”  
  
The Doctor shook his head. “Don’t call him that,” he said sadly. “Koschei really is dead.”   
  
“The Master, then,” Susan said.   
  
“All right,” the Doctor said. “Just to distract them... just in case he actually tries. For Peri I’d do anything. Even play along with this farce.” 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m ending this here because there could easily be an epic while the Time Lords sort out the High Council on Gallifrey and the Master drags his plans into fruition, and we figure out how he got onto Earth on Survival, but that could drag on for ages. I’m just trying to make sense out of what we’ve seen, not tell a whole new story.

It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, switching on the Matrix and letting images wash over him. Images from the future, no less. Since the Master wouldn’t have had time to change anything yet, and the Time Lords had arranged for Peri’s demise, there was no future in which the Doctor saw anything of Peri. There was at least one where he was taken by the Valeyard. Another where, for some reason, he was killed by the Master. A thousand possible futures where he died from one insane scheme or another. Every single one had him traveling alone. So alone, for years and years...   
  
Traveling alone wouldn’t help him. The Time Lords needed to see how he interacted with humans, needed to see him protecting people, saving lives, doing good. Finally Susan found a future for him. He realized he hadn’t been looking for a future in which he had any joy, but Susan was. She let him look the possibility over. She had found a time line where, after traveling alone for some years — he didn’t count how many — he met a young woman called Melanie on Earth and didn’t stop her from coming onto the TARDIS.  
  
He was utterly indifferent to her. He skipped through his meeting her, skipped through their first few planets, skipped and skipped and skipped... and realized he had gotten to the end of this life, and nothing had caught his eye. So he skipped back. Finally something caught him. It was a living plant — the scientists called it a Vervoid — that had nearly slaughtered the occupants of an entire vessel and intended to murder all animal life in the universe — or certainly on whatever planet they came across. It had caught his eye because he was thinking of Peri, and her interest in botany, and how she would have used her knowledge to help him fight them.... But there was no Peri; there was only Melanie, screaming and screaming — in the key of F no less! — and he watched himself save the planet, and he didn’t care. He’d just as soon have seen the whole ship slaughtered.   
  
He couldn’t believe there was any possibility in which he’d get back in the TARDIS and simply zip around happily with some screaming woman who insisted he drink carrot juice. Unless it was a penance. But he had saved humanity. Yet again. Fine. Let them make of this what they would. It would have to do.  
  
“I have a defense,” the Doctor said to Susan. “Are you satisfied now?”   
  
“Yes,” Susan said. She stood up. “And now I have to go.”   
  
The Doctor frowned at her. “Go where?”   
  
“Back to Gallifrey. Someone has to make sure the general populous know what’s going on here. What they’re doing to you. Half the people think you’re a hero — they can’t all be swayed against you forever. You’ve saved Gallifrey a few times as well, you know. They’ll be appalled by what’s going on here. The rules of this trial seem to change arbitrarily according to this Valeyard’s whims. If you have a backing on Gallifrey...”   
  
“Keeping up the home front again, are you?” the Doctor asked.   
  
Susan smiled. “David taught me well.”  
  
He walked her to the Time Transport caskets that would take her to Gallifrey, with his guards trailing along behind like well armed shadows. As she was about to go inside, the Doctor took her shoulder. “You’re still young, you know,” he said. “I know you wish you could have had an Alexander... but there might still be an ‘Actually Is’ somewhere in your future.”   
  
Susan shook her head. “No one knows. The Waters of Time are getting murky. There’s something to do with the Daleks and fire... a war, most people think. No one knows what to make of it. Only some people’s futures are still clear. The high council. You. And their distant futures are all highly classified. There’s no predictions beyond a few years for anyone, now.” She shrugged. “We’ll be okay, I’m sure. Right now you have to get through this trial, and I have to see to it that the people know what’s really happening.” She grinned. “But one day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back, and we’ll see each other again.”   
  
The Doctor smiled back at her and kissed his granddaughter on the cheek before sealing her into the Time casket and sending her on her way.   
  
  
  
***  
Epilogue -- Final Scenes  
***  
  
  
Of course, the whole thing blew up in his face. Then it blew up in the jury’s face. As for the Master, since the Doctor had been carefully lifted out of time, he had all the time in the world to research, investigate and lay schemes. In truth, he was more helpful to the Doctor than he had ever been before. As for the Valeyard, he was never satisfactorily explained to anyone. Trying to understand exactly what the Valeyard was, whether he was the Doctor, or part of the Doctor, or an echo of the Doctor, or something else entirely which simply had some semblance of the Doctor was enough of a paradoxical anomaly that even Romana with her top-grade at the academy would have developed a headache trying to sort it out. How the Valeyard had insinuated himself into the Time Lord council was another question that the Doctor wasn’t going to be able to answer, and neither was the council. If the Master knew the answer, he was being vague in the extreme.   
  
Susan did her part — it wasn’t long before word reached the Time Ship that there was rioting on Gallifrey, and the High Council had been deposed. After the Trial, it became clear that any inquiries as to the Valeyard’s influence reached right up into those levels of the future which were now unclear, tangling into something to do with Daleks and fire and a war and the High Council, and no one was prepared to dig too deeply.   
  
The Master, of course, had his own ideas about what he was going to do with that copy of the Key of Rassilon, and once again the Doctor had to abandon him to his fate. But it wasn’t until the last moment that the Doctor was informed, to his great relief, that his machinations had worked. The Master did SOMETHING... and whatever it was had saved Peri’s life. He heaved a sigh as he realized he could go back and get her, make it up to her, and everything was going to be all right again.   
  
He personally was left with just two loose ends. Mel, who was hanging on him like a limpet. And the Master... because he was sure this wasn’t the end of that trouble, either.  
  
It was with a confused but much lighter heart that the Doctor entered the TARDIS — with Melanie following after like a setter puppy, prattling on about carrot juice. He was going to take Mel home and then go and fetch Peri. There was no way he was going to wander blithely off with this vapid woman who might as well herself have been a squashed orange vegetable. “Carrot juice,” he muttered. As if that could be a replacement for blood and heat and passion.   
  
But at least Peri was alive. That had to be enough for now. 


End file.
